- Parties: The applicants were the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club of British Columbia Foundation. The respondent was the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. 

- Subject Matter: This case arose from the Minister’s amended protection statement for the habitat to which the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 (MBCA) applied to migratory birds listed under the Species at Risk Act, 2002 (SARA). The applicants argued that the protection statement unreasonably limited the protection of the critical habitat of threatened, endangered, and extirpated migratory birds by confining the critical habitat protection contemplated by s. 58(5.2) of the SARA to the nests of those birds, which left most of the critical habitat of other at-risk migratory birds unprotected on non-federal lands across Canada. 

- Ruling: The court ruled in the applicants’ favour, granted the application, set aside the protection statement, and remitted it to the Minister for redetermination. The MBCA’s scheme, s. 58(5.2)’s text, the Convention’s purposes, and the SARA’s scheme limited the range of reasonable interpretations of s. 58(5.2), with the Minister’s interpretation falling beyond that range, the court held. The Minister unreasonably determined that the words “habitat to which [the MBCA] applies” was confined to “nests,” the court concluded. 

- Date: The hearing was set on Nov. 1, 2023. The court released its decision on Feb. 1, 2024. 

- Venue: This was a federal case before the Federal Court. 

- Amount: The court ordered the respondent to pay the applicants costs of $8,900.